Hut site, Killurly Commons, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Killurly Commons, Co. Kerry

On the south-western slopes of Knocknadobar, a mountain on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, a cluster of small stone structures sits quietly beneath the encroaching vegetation.

There are three overgrown huts here, built in drystone construction, a technique in which stones are stacked and fitted together without any mortar, relying entirely on the weight and shape of the material to hold the walls in place. A short distance to the north-west, two further huts sit conjoined, their circular forms sharing a wall, each measuring roughly 2.9 metres in diameter with walls around 0.7 metres thick. Five structures in total, grouped on open commonage, the kind of upland ground that was historically used for seasonal grazing and, at various periods in Irish history, for more permanent or semi-permanent habitation.

The Iveragh Peninsula carries an unusually dense record of early settlement, and sites like this one reflect the long pattern of human occupation across Kerry's uplands. Drystone circular huts of this kind appear across a broad chronological range in Ireland, from the early medieval period through to the post-medieval, and are associated variously with farming communities, transhumance, the seasonal practice of moving livestock to higher ground in summer, and occasionally with the shelters of those displaced during periods of population stress. The site at Killurly Commons was documented as part of the archaeological survey of South Kerry compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996, which catalogued the remarkable density of monument types across this stretch of the peninsula. Without more detailed excavation or dating evidence, the precise period of use for these particular huts remains uncertain, but their form and setting are consistent with a long tradition of upland occupation in the region.

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